pa t r i c k r i c h a r d s o n
and red and black Aboriginal-looking painted dots on the walls, but it felt alive with spirits.
The Simiens A week later, I arrived in the village of Debark, 900 kilometres north of Addis Ababa, to organize a five-day trek into the reputedly stunning Simien Mountains, one of Africa’s highest mountain ranges. I had planned to arrive there by midday, leaving the afternoon to get fixed up with the handful of recommended guides or the sole trekking agency, the official National Tourist Commission (NTC). But the morning bus from Gonder broke down twice on the rutted dirt road, and by the time it pulled into Debark it was 4.30 p.m. and far too late to organize anything that day. Within seconds of getting off, I was surrounded by the usual gaggle of shouting children and jostling youths insisting they were experienced guides. Pursued relentlessly, and worn-out after a month’s hard travelling, I set off up a slope for Debark’s cheapest hotel. To my dismay it was a fleapit doubling as the bordello, with straw-strewn floors, ear-splitting music and a dim interior lit by red light bulbs. Unable to shake off the pack of youths, I returned to the dusty main street, only to discover the other ‘hotel’ wasn’t much better, and, anyway, was full. Suddenly I could no longer stand the continual shouting of ‘you, you!’, which was ferocious even by Ethiopian standards, let alone the prospect of two nights in that dreadful dump. I decided to abandon the trek and continue to Aksum, the little northern town that claims to have the Ark of the Covenant. I was wandering back along the main street, bracing myself for the sleepless, bedbugridden night in store, when I met Omar. Dressed in worn fatigues, he was a hardy, goodlooking, twenty-year-old Israeli with Byronesque wavy black hair, a beard and piercing brown eyes. After I explained my feelings about Debark, he told me he was returning from the NTC, which had just finalized his eight-day trek to Ras Dashen, at 4,543 metres, the country’s highest mountain. ‘For Ethiopia they’re really efficient,’ he told me in his guttural accent, ‘and, what’s more, they’re still open.’ I hurried along to a tumbledown shack on the outskirts and, unbelievably, within an hour the man behind a rickety wooden desk had not only organized the obligatory scout, but also a cook (the only English speaker), a horse and a horse-handler – and everyone ready to leave at dawn. That night I went down to meet the cook, Hailu, in order to make the final arrangements. Owing to power cuts, there was no electricity, and the main street was dotted with dark, drifting shapes. While he negotiated the hire of a tent, sleeping bag and mat, I haggled with furiously arguing youths over an exorbitantly priced gabi (a thick, multi-purpose shawl worn by Ethiopian men, which Hailu said I’d find invaluable for the frosty nights ahead). Afterwards we stocked up on rice, flour, porridge, tinned tomato sauce and biscuits in paraffin-lit shacks, before drinking in a bar to the success of the mini-expedition. 114